RedBandTrailers Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The green band "appropriate audiences" trailer for the new film She's Out of My League ends with a gag in which characters repeat the double entendre "I came early." In the green band trailers for this Summer's Get Him to the Greek, Jonah Hill has wild sex with a girl in a bathroom stall and stuffs a bag of drugs into his rectum. Since when did green band trailers go completely insane?

These antics are usually reserved for the red band trailers -- ads with R-rated content from the R-rated movies they advertise. Many theater chains won't even play red band trailers partly in fear that a mixed-up projectionist might place one on a kiddie movie and face the wrath of an auditorium full of angry parents. I have distinct memories of working as a theater manager when the trailers for Independence Day hit and the three words "aw, hell no" that Will Smith utters in the ad were so offensive to sensitive customers that we actually had to pull them from our prints.

I'm not a prude about it (I'm actually pretty pumped to see Get Him to the Greek, as I loved Forgetting Sarah Marshall), but how in the world are things like rectal drug-smuggling and ejaculate sneaking through with a green band? They're just on the cusp of what's considered unacceptable for prime time television, but I truly sympathize with any theater manager out there who has to deal with a squeaky wheel customer, upset over the content of a trailer.

Maybe it's time for a yellow band trailer -- something in-between the green and the red that will let audiences (and the exhibitors) know that the content of the ad may be too much for a family going to see something like Avatar, which is a relatively tame PG-13 (as opposed to a tougher PG-13, like The Lovely Bones for example). I know that's what the red band is supposed to be for, but as the green bands get dirtier, I fear for my brothers and sisters in theater management. Nobody likes dealing with an angry customer.

To paraphrase the scariest horror movie currently in theaters -- Mamma Mia! -- you wait long enough for a red-band trailer and then three come along at once, at least two of which deal with hitting the road in the name of action, so without further ado...

First up is the age-restricted trailer for this week's Death Race. I've yet to watch this one myself, since reactions posted elsewhere have assured me that whatever meager hopes I have for it being just a fun piece of trash cinema -- from a filmmaker who often lives down to that title -- are to be derived from moments shamelessly showcased therein. I'm no prude, having shelf space and soft spots set aside for the man's Event Horizon and the first Resident Evil, for the reliably butt-kicking Jason Statham and for the surprisingly present Joan Allen (him signing up for it, no big surprise, but her?). However, I'm roughly one trailer away (well, one feature away) from giving it the genuine benefit of the doubt.

Erik wrote about the original trailer back in June, and now one only has to wait until this Friday to determine just how fast and spurious this baby is.

After August comes September, and after Death Race comes Righteous Kill. The profanity-spiked red-band trailer for this NYPD thriller has been included after the jump...

Imagine not having to input your birth date and other information in order to watch a red band trailer. Oh yeah, that's already a reality thanks to YouTube. But you know what I mean. Legally, currently, we've had to prove our ages to see restricted trailers for such movies as Pineapple Express, Semi-Pro, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, The Foot Fist Way (this comedy's whole website is age-restricted), Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and, most recently, Tropic Thunder. We've even seen red band trailers for PG-13-rated movies like Beowulf, which doesn't make any sense at all. Well, now we can see them on the big screen again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Regal Entertainment Group cinemas (includes: Regal, United Artists, Edwards) has decided to bring red band trailers back to theaters.

Regal, the nation's largest cinema operator, made the announcement last week at ShoWest (yet the news hit the trades too late for my summary) and will begin looking at red band ads this week to see which film gets to be the inaugural title (the chain has already been quietly experimenting with a few at its Art Theaters). Obviously the trailers will only be shown before movies rated R or NC-17 or which are unrated. And most of them will likely continue to be for Judd Apatow movies. The move by Regal should put some new life into the marketing of certain movies -- Semi-Pro might have done better had its red band trailer been shown in theaters -- and will possibly influence other cinema chains to follow suit.